This disclosure relates in general to content delivery and, more specifically, but not by way of limitation, to dynamic bandwidth allocation for content delivery.
A content delivery network (CDN) is used by many web sites to deliver content more efficiently. The CDN may host, mirror or cache the content as well as deliver it to a requesting party. A web site or origin server is linked to the CDN such that some or all content can be sourced from the CDN rather than the web site. This process of fulfilling a link through a CDN is usually transparent to the user.
A web site may contract with a CDN to deliver a particular content object or stream a set number of times. After that set number is exceeded, the web site may remove the link or the CDN could prevent further delivery of the content object or stream. For example, a 200 Kbps stream may be made available to the first 10,000 requestors for a particular news event, but subsequent visitors to the web site would not see the link to the stream.
The interface between an origin server and a CDN is binary today where some consumers are lost in the hand-off. Links are provided to the CDN and those links are either fulfilled or not by the CDN posed with those links. From the consumer perspective, a CDN that fails to fulfill a link appears broken.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.